Today, Biss for Illinois launched its latest television ad, “More.” The ad shares home videos of Daniel and his family and explains why Illinois families need a middle-class governor they can trust to put their needs first.
I’m Daniel Biss, and when I say I’ll be the middle class governor, it’s about more than where we live, or that we send our kids to public schools, it’s about my commitment to level the playing field for the rest of us.
While my wealthy opponents profit from our rigged system, I’ll make billionaires pay their fair share in taxes, to invest in good schools and healthcare for all.
Announcer: Democrat Daniel Biss. The middle-class governor.
That middle-class governor line is a really good hook.
* Meanwhile, from the Pritzker campaign…
Today, the Pritzker campaign is continuing a new series, highlighting where Dan Biss’ campaign rhetoric is at odds with his record. Dan Biss says he’s a proven progressive, but he voted to increase funding for charter schools at the expense of neighborhood public schools. Let’s check the record.
Despite praising public education on the campaign trail, Dan Biss undermined public education by voting to shift tax dollars from neighborhood public schools to charter schools in 2012. CPS alone would have lost $126 million a year if the bill passed, but thanks to strong opposition from teachers unions and progressive groups, the bill was defeated. Biss’ support comes as no surprise given his unequivocal statement in 2010: “I support the charter school movement.”
“Were it not for teachers unions and progressive organizations standing up to him, Dan Biss would’ve stripped money from neighborhood public schools to fill the coffers of charters,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “Public school children in Illinois deserve better than politicians like Bruce Rauner and Dan Biss siphoning critical dollars away from their education.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It was a tactical error to let Sen. Biss hang around so close for so long. JB had a chance to lap him and didn’t. He read from the Rauner playbook instead of the Madigan playbook. Irony.
Middle-class Governor? The man has picked up Bernie Sanders socialist agenda, and thinks it is a good thing. He will appeal to Sanders voters. Sanders lost Illinois, there just aren’t enough of them. So the Robin Hood idea of robbing the rich to give to the poor, just won’t catch fire. Most people I know believe if you work hard, you get ahead. They don’t believe if you do nothing you get free everything.
I give it a B, makes him look approachable and I think the whole middle class governor thing has a nice ring to it. BUT, he’s going to need to get support from people besides white progressives and I’m not sure this ad will do much to help with that.
- middle class ok - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:08 am:
While I don’t entirely buy into Biss as the second coming of Bernie Sanders, I do appreciate the contrast that his campaign offers to Rauner and Pritzker. A general between the two billonaires will be a bloodbath. And while Biss does have some issues with his voting record I don’t think they’re so fatal that they can’t be overcome. With Pritzker it always seems like there’s another shoe that’s going to drop (probably because there is).
The Pritzker campaign’s insistence on referring to Biss as “Dan Biss” is frankly obnoxious (and of course a cheap way to capitalize on the domain they bought to “expose” Biss’s record).
Retired Educator: I am adamantly not a Bernie Sanders fan, but I like Biss and think he’s pretty clearly the best candidate in the race. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are others like me.
“The Pritzker campaign’s insistence on referring to Biss as “Dan Biss” is frankly obnoxious (and of course a cheap way to capitalize on the domain they bought to “expose” Biss’s record).”
A middle class candidate who wanted to take legitimately earned pension benefits from middle class public employees? Sorry, with a TRS member in my household, I see right through this smokescreen.
Imaginary JB campaign ad with Biss and JB talking to each other:
Biss: JB, you’ve had every privilege, you’re a member of the billionaire class, whereas I’m from a modest background, and I’m a proud member of the middle class.
JB: Dan, what you say is true, but we do have one thing in common.
Not even funny that he touts himself as a representative of the middle class. Most significant evidence is trying to make middle class teachers/retirees into lower class, second class citizens by slashing their pensions. And it was a specifically aimed targeted group of workers. Can’t think of a single teacher or retiree who could ever vote for this pension theif.
I definitely see some bad votes Biss has cast as a legislator. But I also see tons of good votes: increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, instituting ranked choice voting for statewide offices (not exactly the kind of thing a Madigan Democrat would do), instituting automatic voter registration, decriminalizing marijuana, and many more (https://votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/101726/daniel-biss).
All candidates for governor have their flaws, but I think Biss has the fewest. Pritzker seems like he’s in it for himself and his dealing with Blagojevich and others are troubling, and neither he nor Kennedy have government experience. On balance, Biss’s record is best - in large part because he actually has one. And if you listen to the candidates discuss the issues, Biss knows them better than the others.
I have a much easier time believing Biss will enact real change than believing Pritzker or Kennedy will.
- For What Its Worth - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:31 am:
Biss (Evanston) is not sending his children to public schools in an impoverished school district by any stretch of the imagination.
I don’t mean to pick a fight - for which Mr. Miller may banish me - but I think Bernie got 49% in the ‘16 Primary. If J.B. and Kennedy split the Clinton vote, and Biss dominates the Berniecrats, then Bill can win on March 20.
Grading strictly on the ad’s power and immediate impact on a TV screen: whoever came up with the “I’ll be a Middle Class governor” tagline deserves professional kudos –and a raise. It is a brilliant simple slogan for candidate differentiation in the D. primary. Grade A.
“Public school children in Illinois deserve better than politicians like Bruce Rauner and Dan Biss siphoning critical dollars away from their education.”
I liked this part of the response. Putting Rauner’s name next to Biss (or whichever candidate he wants to talk about) is a small but good detail, even when it doesn’t fit nearly as much such as this time. Makes it clear you’re keeping all the different channels working together. Attack him in a way you are also attacking Rauner, every channel working together.
I get that Biss has done some things that would have hurt labor. But he never wanted to END labor as we know it.
If Biss got the nomination, would labor really not vote for him - and thus increase Rauner’s chance of winning?
I know they did it 4 years with PQ, but Rauner was being a little coy with labor back then. He now has a record.
Seriously, I can’t understand how anyone with any connection to organized labor would do anything that could possibly help Rauner win. Can someone explain that to me?
Offering something besides some of the failed public schools is a good thing. Competition makes you work harder and smarter. Too much complacency in the work force today and I am talking just about everywhere at every level.
I do not consider a professor from an elite university and state legislator to be a “normal” middle class citizen. Both live in insulated bubbles.
- Grandson of Man - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 11:38 am:
The delivery sounds forced, but great message. It has to be about taxing the rich more. That should be the Democratic core message. A super-rich guy, Rauner, severely damaged the state because he refused to pass budgets and do his job without massive concessions from working class public employees, and the working class in general through local RtW. Lay down the marker now and play up the stark contrast.
I’m not very moved by whether or not a candidate is wealthy, but good on Biss for playing the middle class angle. From what I can see and hear, it means a lot to some people.
Henry Francis - From my perspective labor is certainly not helping Rauner win, My goal at this point is to assure Biss looses. His face and mathematical brains was put out front in the attempted pension theft. I did not forgive Quinn and will not forgive Biss either.
- supplied_demand - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 11:51 am:
==Retired Educator
They don’t believe if you do nothing you get free everything. ==
Has Biss taken this stance? If so I haven’t seen it. When you have to go to these extremes to make your point, it isn’t that good of a point. You are being disingenuous.
The idea of Biss as a “middle class”, normal dude is laughable. He live’s in Evanston. Is the son of wealthy college professors. He and his wife have PhDs. He’s a lot of things, but normal is not one of them.
Candidates get themselves in trouble trying to be someone other than who they are. If this is Biss’ central narrative, that he’s just like, he’s going to struggle as JB blows it up.
Simply not creditable. Harvard undergraduate, PhD MIT, Assistant Prof University of Chicago until his faulty published research that he refused to admit until 4 years later collasped. Took him 4 years to admit: “The author would like to thank Nikolai Mnëv for drawing his attention to this error.”
Rauner is to the Republicans as Biss is to the Democrats.
Regardless of where you live and where you send your kids to school, if your family of four lives in 1,000 sqft with an annual income of less than 60k, you’re middle class in my book.
Harvard, MIT, UChicago, Evanston — who cares? In what world is a guy that makes 60k/year not middle class? Don’t conflate social/academic status with net financial worth. Unless that’s your intention from the start…
- Liberty -
You took it to far; Rauhner is a billionaire hedge fund, right to work, Reagan Republican. Just because Biss was intelligent enough to go to elite schools does not make him the equivalent of Rauhner in any sense of the matter. MIT is NOT one of those schools that you can just pay into– it actually requires a level of intellectual thinking I know I certainly can’t comprehend.
==The idea of Biss as a “middle class”, normal dude is laughable…==
Interesting how that works. One guy with Biss’ background goes out into the world and architects complex algorithms, is compensated well for it, then becomes the proverbial evil rich guy. Biss takes that same background, goes into politics and is the everyday middle-class man.
For one, Biss doesn’t shorten his first name on basically anything. It would be like if McCain had referred to Obama as “Barry” in 2008 or if Biss called Pritzker “Jay Bob.”
For two, as I said, it’s a bald-faced attempt to play up on the fact that the Pritzker campaign bought danbiss.net and is promoting it via AdWords and such.
Liberty, I’m not a professional income analyst, but Biss has made years and years of his tax returns public. They don’t show income falling above or below middle class status, right? Do you have some unreported source of income in mind? I’m unclear on what your standards are for “reflecting” the middle class.
I agree with you, Mike. Biss clearly was able to attend top-tier schools and taught at the University of Chicago, but so what? He doesn’t earn a ridiculous amount of money - based on income, he’s definitely middle-class.
In my book, you’re rich when you have so much wealth that you could live a middle-class lifestyle for the rest of your life without ever working again. Biss is nowhere near that level of wealth. I can’t say the same for Pritzker or Kennedy.
In the era of Trump and black lives matter, JBlago’s baggage is way more damaging then Biss’ baggage in the Democratic Primary.
As for the General, JB and Kennedy will be defeated by Rauner. Kennedy because he is a poor candidate and JB because of the FBI tapes. Rauner will drop JB’s favorability below Quinn’s numbers and win.
I don’t like everything Biss has done but he is exactly the smart, generic, keeping his nose clean candidate the Dems need to beat Rauner and for me that trumps Biss’ pension sins.
- A guy - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 9:57 am:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It was a tactical error to let Sen. Biss hang around so close for so long. JB had a chance to lap him and didn’t. He read from the Rauner playbook instead of the Madigan playbook. Irony.
- Retired Educator - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:07 am:
Middle-class Governor? The man has picked up Bernie Sanders socialist agenda, and thinks it is a good thing. He will appeal to Sanders voters. Sanders lost Illinois, there just aren’t enough of them. So the Robin Hood idea of robbing the rich to give to the poor, just won’t catch fire. Most people I know believe if you work hard, you get ahead. They don’t believe if you do nothing you get free everything.
- ItsMillerTime - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:08 am:
I give it a B, makes him look approachable and I think the whole middle class governor thing has a nice ring to it. BUT, he’s going to need to get support from people besides white progressives and I’m not sure this ad will do much to help with that.
- middle class ok - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:08 am:
Everytime he says middle class I think about this NYT piece. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/opinion/sunday/stop-pretending-youre-not-rich.html
- Huh? - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:09 am:
They forgot the attacks on pensions and health care.
- Pundent - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:10 am:
While I don’t entirely buy into Biss as the second coming of Bernie Sanders, I do appreciate the contrast that his campaign offers to Rauner and Pritzker. A general between the two billonaires will be a bloodbath. And while Biss does have some issues with his voting record I don’t think they’re so fatal that they can’t be overcome. With Pritzker it always seems like there’s another shoe that’s going to drop (probably because there is).
- Galen - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:12 am:
The Pritzker campaign’s insistence on referring to Biss as “Dan Biss” is frankly obnoxious (and of course a cheap way to capitalize on the domain they bought to “expose” Biss’s record).
- Galen - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:14 am:
Retired Educator: I am adamantly not a Bernie Sanders fan, but I like Biss and think he’s pretty clearly the best candidate in the race. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are others like me.
- Anon0091 - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:17 am:
“The Pritzker campaign’s insistence on referring to Biss as “Dan Biss” is frankly obnoxious (and of course a cheap way to capitalize on the domain they bought to “expose” Biss’s record).”
Why is calling him Dan obnoxious?
- Anonymous - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:21 am:
A middle class candidate who wanted to take legitimately earned pension benefits from middle class public employees? Sorry, with a TRS member in my household, I see right through this smokescreen.
- Bob in Elgin - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:22 am:
Imaginary JB campaign ad with Biss and JB talking to each other:
Biss: JB, you’ve had every privilege, you’re a member of the billionaire class, whereas I’m from a modest background, and I’m a proud member of the middle class.
JB: Dan, what you say is true, but we do have one thing in common.
Biss: What’s that?
JB: We’re both traitors to our class.
- OneMan - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:28 am:
Have to say the Biss middle-class ads work.
Still not going to vote for the guy, but they are great ads.
- AnonymousOne - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:29 am:
Not even funny that he touts himself as a representative of the middle class. Most significant evidence is trying to make middle class teachers/retirees into lower class, second class citizens by slashing their pensions. And it was a specifically aimed targeted group of workers. Can’t think of a single teacher or retiree who could ever vote for this pension theif.
- Techie - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:30 am:
I definitely see some bad votes Biss has cast as a legislator. But I also see tons of good votes: increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, instituting ranked choice voting for statewide offices (not exactly the kind of thing a Madigan Democrat would do), instituting automatic voter registration, decriminalizing marijuana, and many more (https://votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/101726/daniel-biss).
All candidates for governor have their flaws, but I think Biss has the fewest. Pritzker seems like he’s in it for himself and his dealing with Blagojevich and others are troubling, and neither he nor Kennedy have government experience. On balance, Biss’s record is best - in large part because he actually has one. And if you listen to the candidates discuss the issues, Biss knows them better than the others.
I have a much easier time believing Biss will enact real change than believing Pritzker or Kennedy will.
- For What Its Worth - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:31 am:
Biss (Evanston) is not sending his children to public schools in an impoverished school district by any stretch of the imagination.
- DarkHorse - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:31 am:
Dear Retired Educator,
I don’t mean to pick a fight - for which Mr. Miller may banish me - but I think Bernie got 49% in the ‘16 Primary. If J.B. and Kennedy split the Clinton vote, and Biss dominates the Berniecrats, then Bill can win on March 20.
- RNUG - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:39 am:
IF, and that is a BIG IF, Biss could patch up his problems with the unions, the middle class approach could work really good.
Of course, if Biss manages to eke out a win in the primary, it may not matter in the general. In the general, just being “not Rauner” may be enough.
- Responsa - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:43 am:
Grading strictly on the ad’s power and immediate impact on a TV screen: whoever came up with the “I’ll be a Middle Class governor” tagline deserves professional kudos –and a raise. It is a brilliant simple slogan for candidate differentiation in the D. primary. Grade A.
- m - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:43 am:
“Public school children in Illinois deserve better than politicians like Bruce Rauner and Dan Biss siphoning critical dollars away from their education.”
I liked this part of the response. Putting Rauner’s name next to Biss (or whichever candidate he wants to talk about) is a small but good detail, even when it doesn’t fit nearly as much such as this time. Makes it clear you’re keeping all the different channels working together. Attack him in a way you are also attacking Rauner, every channel working together.
- Henry Francis - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:52 am:
I get that Biss has done some things that would have hurt labor. But he never wanted to END labor as we know it.
If Biss got the nomination, would labor really not vote for him - and thus increase Rauner’s chance of winning?
I know they did it 4 years with PQ, but Rauner was being a little coy with labor back then. He now has a record.
Seriously, I can’t understand how anyone with any connection to organized labor would do anything that could possibly help Rauner win. Can someone explain that to me?
- Stand Tall - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:53 am:
Offering something besides some of the failed public schools is a good thing. Competition makes you work harder and smarter. Too much complacency in the work force today and I am talking just about everywhere at every level.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 10:59 am:
===If J.B. and Kennedy split the Clinton vote, and Biss dominates the Berniecrats===
Doesn’t usually work that way.
- A Jack - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 11:30 am:
If he really wanted to sound middle-class, he should go with Danny Biss.
Biss spent too much time on Chicago property taxes to make me think he is concerned about down-state middle-class issues.
- Huh? - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 11:36 am:
I do not consider a professor from an elite university and state legislator to be a “normal” middle class citizen. Both live in insulated bubbles.
- Grandson of Man - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 11:38 am:
The delivery sounds forced, but great message. It has to be about taxing the rich more. That should be the Democratic core message. A super-rich guy, Rauner, severely damaged the state because he refused to pass budgets and do his job without massive concessions from working class public employees, and the working class in general through local RtW. Lay down the marker now and play up the stark contrast.
I’m not very moved by whether or not a candidate is wealthy, but good on Biss for playing the middle class angle. From what I can see and hear, it means a lot to some people.
- Cocoa Dave - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 11:38 am:
Henry Francis - From my perspective labor is certainly not helping Rauner win, My goal at this point is to assure Biss looses. His face and mathematical brains was put out front in the attempted pension theft. I did not forgive Quinn and will not forgive Biss either.
- supplied_demand - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 11:51 am:
==Retired Educator
They don’t believe if you do nothing you get free everything. ==
Has Biss taken this stance? If so I haven’t seen it. When you have to go to these extremes to make your point, it isn’t that good of a point. You are being disingenuous.
- WizzardofOzzie - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 12:10 pm:
The idea of Biss as a “middle class”, normal dude is laughable. He live’s in Evanston. Is the son of wealthy college professors. He and his wife have PhDs. He’s a lot of things, but normal is not one of them.
Candidates get themselves in trouble trying to be someone other than who they are. If this is Biss’ central narrative, that he’s just like, he’s going to struggle as JB blows it up.
- Liberty - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 12:14 pm:
Simply not creditable. Harvard undergraduate, PhD MIT, Assistant Prof University of Chicago until his faulty published research that he refused to admit until 4 years later collasped. Took him 4 years to admit: “The author would like to thank Nikolai Mnëv for drawing his attention to this error.”
Rauner is to the Republicans as Biss is to the Democrats.
- Contract Disputin' - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 12:17 pm:
Regardless of where you live and where you send your kids to school, if your family of four lives in 1,000 sqft with an annual income of less than 60k, you’re middle class in my book.
- Justin - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 12:41 pm:
I loved the ad. Hopefully he’s the nominee for my party.
- Mike - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 12:46 pm:
Harvard, MIT, UChicago, Evanston — who cares? In what world is a guy that makes 60k/year not middle class? Don’t conflate social/academic status with net financial worth. Unless that’s your intention from the start…
- ILDemVoter - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 12:55 pm:
- Liberty -
You took it to far; Rauhner is a billionaire hedge fund, right to work, Reagan Republican. Just because Biss was intelligent enough to go to elite schools does not make him the equivalent of Rauhner in any sense of the matter. MIT is NOT one of those schools that you can just pay into– it actually requires a level of intellectual thinking I know I certainly can’t comprehend.
- City Zen - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 1:23 pm:
==The idea of Biss as a “middle class”, normal dude is laughable…==
Interesting how that works. One guy with Biss’ background goes out into the world and architects complex algorithms, is compensated well for it, then becomes the proverbial evil rich guy. Biss takes that same background, goes into politics and is the everyday middle-class man.
I don’t buy it either, but to each his own.
- Liberty - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 1:41 pm:
Mike, Income isn'’t everything and a U of C prof has a much greater income than middle class. In no way does Biss reflect the middle class.
- Galen - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 1:47 pm:
For one, Biss doesn’t shorten his first name on basically anything. It would be like if McCain had referred to Obama as “Barry” in 2008 or if Biss called Pritzker “Jay Bob.”
For two, as I said, it’s a bald-faced attempt to play up on the fact that the Pritzker campaign bought danbiss.net and is promoting it via AdWords and such.
- Mike - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 2:05 pm:
Liberty, I’m not a professional income analyst, but Biss has made years and years of his tax returns public. They don’t show income falling above or below middle class status, right? Do you have some unreported source of income in mind? I’m unclear on what your standards are for “reflecting” the middle class.
- Techie - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 2:29 pm:
I agree with you, Mike. Biss clearly was able to attend top-tier schools and taught at the University of Chicago, but so what? He doesn’t earn a ridiculous amount of money - based on income, he’s definitely middle-class.
In my book, you’re rich when you have so much wealth that you could live a middle-class lifestyle for the rest of your life without ever working again. Biss is nowhere near that level of wealth. I can’t say the same for Pritzker or Kennedy.
- Dan - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 2:30 pm:
In the era of Trump and black lives matter, JBlago’s baggage is way more damaging then Biss’ baggage in the Democratic Primary.
As for the General, JB and Kennedy will be defeated by Rauner. Kennedy because he is a poor candidate and JB because of the FBI tapes. Rauner will drop JB’s favorability below Quinn’s numbers and win.
I don’t like everything Biss has done but he is exactly the smart, generic, keeping his nose clean candidate the Dems need to beat Rauner and for me that trumps Biss’ pension sins.
- Ron - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 3:34 pm:
“Most people I know believe if you work hard, you get ahead.”
Of course, that is BS unless you’re a white male.
“They don’t believe if you do nothing you get free everything.”
I agree generally with this.
- Ron - Friday, Feb 16, 18 @ 3:35 pm:
Biss is the worst of the dems with the very dangerous transaction tax proposal.